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Friday, December 05, 2014

Flourless and sugar-free pistachio cookies are a healthy little cookie for the holidays!

(On Fridays I feature favorite recipes you may have missed, and these Four-Ingredient Flourless, Sugar-Free Pistachio Cookies are introducing a new Friday feature. Five Ingredient Fridays will spotlight recipes with five ingredients or less; hope you enjoy!)

This cookie recipe is especially for anyone who's trying to avoid the sugar blues this holiday. These tiny little cookies made with ground pistachios, almond meal or flour, sweetener of your choice, and eggs are delicious and perfect for the holidays. I found the original recipe on a great blog called The Italian Dish, who got it from II Viaggio Di Vetri: A Culinary Journey by Marc Vetri, and apparently the cookies are served in his Philadelphia restaurant, Vetri.

With only four ingredients, this recipe might be the ultimate test of how easy it is to substitute Splenda or Stevia-in-the-Raw Granulated Sweetener for sugar in a recipe, and I was happy with the results.

I was struck by how different my dough looked from the pictures on The Italian Dish, but I didn't realize until I looked it up on Wikipedia that almond meal and almond flour are slightly different. I used Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal which probably gave the cookies a slightly denser texture, but still worked perfectly. You could also use Blanched Almond Flour for a finer-textured cookie. I mixed the cookies in a food processor.

I was baking the cookies in my toaster oven, so I had several batches to cook. The first batch didn't spread enough, so by the second batch I decided to smash the cookies down a bit, like the ones in this photo.

In food processor or bowl of immersion blender, combine pistachios with 2 T Splenda or Stevia-in-the-Raw Granulated Sweetener and process until the nuts are finely ground. If using food processor change to plastic blade, or transfer pistachio/sweetener mixture to stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment.

Add the almond meal and cup of sweetener and mix until well combined. Then add eggs and mix until completely blended into dry ingredients. Remove mixture from food process or mixer bowl and chill at least 8 hours. (I chilled it overnight and baked the cookies the next day.)

Preheat the oven to 325F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Scoop a small spoonfuls of dough and roll between your hands to make a small ball about an inch in diameter. (I used a teaspoon measuring spoon to scoop out the dough.) Put each ball on the parchment, smash down slightly, then press one pistachio into the center.

Bake cookies until they are lightly browned on the edges, about 12-15 minutes in my toaster oven. Let cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet, then transfer to cooling rack or dish towel and let cool.

My cookies didn't spread out much, probably due to the denser texture from the almond meal. Seems to me this recipe would also be very adaptable to other types of nuts; I'd love to know if anyone tries some variations.

Made with Splenda, Stevia-in-the-Raw Granulated Sweetener, or other approved sweetener this cookie would be approved for phase 2 or 3 of the South Beach Diet, or other low-glycemic or low-carb eating plans. However, these are very calorie-dense cookies, so limit your servings and be sure to count the cookies as your allotment of nuts for the day if you're following South Beach.

Nutritional Information?
I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you.

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Posts may include links to my affiliate account at Amazon.com, and this blog earns a few cents on the dollar if readers purchase the items I recommend, so thanks for supporting my blog when you shop at Amazon!

I can tell just by reading the ingredients that these would be delish! I love pistachios in just about anything. And thanks for the link to the sugar-free sugar cookies--just baked up a batch last week (so much fun to roll cookies!). PS Never knew about the difference between almond meal and flour--I guess I've only seen meal around here.

Rikki, I decided I haven't used almond flour either after I read that. I think it might be an Italian product, whereas in the U.S. we only get almond meal. Of course after I read that I wanted to get some almond flour so I could try it!

Well, dang! I would like to try these as a sugar free version, myself! Just to clarify, what I use at home and in my recipe is Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour. That's how it's labeled. The only ingredient is finely ground almonds. That's what I use to bake anything that calls for Almond Flour. Don't know about any ofo the other products, but that's what I keep on hand. I love it that you made the sugar free version, Kalyn, because I never know if substituting Splenda works and I try to watch my sugar, too. Thanks!

Italian Dish. that's very interesting because Bob's Red Mill is exactly the brand I used too! No idea why our batter looked so different, but maybe it's just that I mixed it with a food processor. Great recipe though, thanks, and I love your blog!

Raquel, I don't really know. I've never cooked with soy flour. I doubt it though, as the almond meal is much heavier. If you try it, let us know how it works. Maybe part soy flour and part almond meal would work, for a lighter cookie.

Hi Kalyn, Trader Joe's has a ground almond meal that I've used in place of flour with great success. I've not tried Bob's Red Mill but will soon as a comparison. I'll bet these cute little cookies satisfy a sugar craving. Thanks for sharing them.A while ago I got away from using Splenda and went back to small amounts of sugar. Well, my body told me in no uncertain terms that Sugar was definitely on its no-no list, so I'm back to Splenda, sparingly, and am much happier.

Kalyn, I didn't have pistachios, so I decided to play with the recipe a little. I used almond meal, pre-packaged crushed walnuts, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice (these ingredients were all leftover from your pumpkin pie cheesecake recipe!), a little vanilla, and a pinch of salt. I put slivered almonds on top of the cookies and baked. Very, very good. Thanks for this great recipe. I can't wait to try the real one!

Yum! These are great for Passover, where baking soda/powder and flour are a no-no. I did a trial run this week in preparation for the holiday, and they came out great! I didn't chill the dough more than 4 hours because I didn't get to that part in the recipe until it was sort of too late. I baked a tray yesterday and continued to chill the rest--I'll bake them now and see how they turn out!

I'd like to try these cookies with stevia or agave sweeteners, instead of splenda. I'll let you know how they turn out. The conversions are not straight forward, but this is a simple recipe and I love pistachios. I have a reaction to artificial sweeteners, even splenda.

I'm so glad to discover your site, as I'm just starting the southbeach diet. Great looking recipes! Two questions on this cooking recipe:

1. Do you think this dough would work in a cookie press?

2. How many of these cookies do you think = a dessert serving for Phase 1? I haven't a clue how it all balances out, and want something different than the various forms of ricotta desserts that are recommended with dinner.

Kalyn-- I only chilled this for about 3 hours and before I chilled it, I formed the ball into a log wrapped in wax paper and when it came time to bake them I just sliced the number of cookies I wanted off the log and put the rest in the fridge for another time.

This is my last day of phase 1 of South Beach and I'm going to have one (or two) of these without reservation. I simply ground up my own almonds so I'm thinking this makes them acceptable since no flour was added to my almond meal.

Jennifer, go ahead and have a couple, but I do need to tell you that no kind of flour (even nut flour) is really allowed for phase one. (The almond "flour" doesn't contain flour, it's just called that because the almonds are so finely ground.) I was mixed up about that for quite a while though, and it didn't seem to hurt me. (I think it's not allowed because nuts are so calorie dense, that when they're ground into flour it's easy to eat more than the allowed amount.)

I didn't read all the comments - so maybe someone already corrected you. But Mark Vetri's Philadelphia restaurant is actually called VETRI, not Vendi. Its one of the best Italian restaurants in the country.

Thanks for joining the conversation! I love hearing from readers and even though I can't always reply to every comment, I will always answer specific questions on a recipe as soon as possible. Sometimes I'm answering by iPhone, so my replies may be short!

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